


Rock, Paper, Sleepytime!

by Milkbonez



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Gen, Oneshot, THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-01 19:13:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20263123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Milkbonez/pseuds/Milkbonez
Summary: Nighttime has settled on the class’s first night in the Ultimate Academy for Gifted Juveniles, but half the rooms aren’t in order. Time for bed-sharing shenanigans!





	Rock, Paper, Sleepytime!

They’d spent hour after hour of their first day at the Ultimate Academy tackling the hellish obstacle course known as the Death Road of Despair. Each misstep, each badly-timed jump into the abyss below brought them back to the ladder and the manhole opening. They had come close to nothing but exhaustion and hopelessness. At long last, Monokuma had announced on the screen that it was 10pm, officially nighttime.

One by one, the students plodded across the campus from the area dubbed the Backyard to the dormitory building. They congregated in the darkness at the double-door entrance, waiting to get inside.

“Hurry up and open the damn door!” demanded Miu.

“I’m trying!” Kaito snapped back. “They’re both locked.” He tugged and tugged on the handles, but the doors refused to budge. He growled, “C’mon, man…”

Irritated groans and sighs rippled among the students as the cluster grew. Kirumi huffed, “Is this some kind of cruel joke?”

“I’m too tired for this,” Himiko grumbled, the pointed tip of her witch hat drooping.

Gonta offered, “Shall I open the door by force?”

As if on cue, the doors clicked. Kaito swung them open, and the students poured into the dormitory. The inside of the dormitory was rounded in shape. On the bottom floor were eight bedrooms, four on each side. In the very center of the main room was a layered octagonal platform, almost like a stage of four short stair-steps. Reaching up from the top platform were two staircases, one on each side, both leading to eight more bedrooms on the upper floor: four on one side, four on the other. Standing in a row on the so-called stage were five familiar two-tone teddy bears.

“Thank you for bearing with us!” the Monokubs sang in unison.

“Man, you guys look beat!” Monotaro remarked. “All tuckered out and ready for beddy-bye time.”

Monosuke chimed in, “And normally we woulda let you guys into the dorms on your own.”

“So what’s wrong with the bedrooms?” Shuichi asked, looking over to one side of the dorm rooms. Some of the doors on both the top and bottom floors had a strip of yellow Caution tape over the doors. It was the same on the other side of the dormitory, too; exactly half of the rooms were blocked off.

“We were getting to that, if you’d shut up!” Monokid bellowed. “Due to some unforeseen building circumstances, only half the rooms are liveable right now. If you ask me, it’s Monodam’s fault somehow!”

The metallic, green Monokub, holding a rectangular box with a lid, was as silent as ever.

Monophanie spoke up next. “But not to worry! We’re going to continue working on them after tonight. They should all be ready before lunchtime tomorrow.”

“But what about sleeping arrangements for tonight?” asked Tsumugi. “Surely we can’t all share rooms…”

Monosuke said, “Actually, that’s exactly what youse bastards are gonna do for tonight!”

“Oh dear,” Tsumugi grunted. “That’s so improper…”

“I’ll share rooms with Himiko!” Tenko squeezed through the crush of bodies to the mage’s side, hugging onto her arm. “No degenerate males will harass you tonight.”

“Nyeh…”

“Too fuckin’ bad! That ain’t up to you!!” howled Monokid, startling someone at the front of the cluster. “We already assigned partners for everyone!”

Monotaro asked, “We did?”

“It was mostly Monophanie’s doing,” Monosuke explained.

Monophanie gestured to the lidded box Monodam was holding. “In this box are the room keys. Each key has two nametags tied to it to represent which students will share a room.”

K1-B0 raised his hand. “If I may ask a question, before you announce the pairs.”

“What is it?”

“Would we be able to trade partners after being assigned rooms? I would rather not have to share a space with someone robophobic.”

“Nope!” Monotaro chirped. “It’s already nighttime, and you all look exhausted anyway. We want to prevent the possibility of everyone wasting time by playing Musical Ultimates with each other.”

“I worked hard on pairing everyone up,” said Monophanie, “so no sleepovers of three or four to a room, either.”

“And we’re not afraid of using our Exisals to enforce that, either!” Monokid chimed in. “Break the rules all ya want, though! I’d love to take one of those babies out for a spin.”

Miu spat with ire. “I’d hate to get stuck with Creep Show.” She made no attempt to be subtle as she nodded at Korekiyo.

“I’m not too keen on having you as a partner, either,” he returned calmly.

Angie chuckled. “It might not be so bad! After all, it is only for one night, right?”

Rantaro nodded in agreement. “Angie is right. We’ve all had a long day. Let’s just take this in stride, get some rest, and we’ll all enjoy having our own rooms tomorrow.”

“If there are no more questions,” Monophanie said, “I will go ahead and hand out the keys.”

* * *

Stepping into her assigned room and leaving her shoes by the door, Kaede looked around. Two soft white lights in the high ceiling cast a sleepy glow over the black interior of the room. It was furnished with all the essentials, like a bedside table, a desk, a closet, even several shelves home to some books and ceramic teapots for decoration. Two of the walls were white, and various furnishings like the coffee table, the bicolored loveseat in front of a television set in the wall, and the comforter of the bed were accented nicely in bright red.

That’s when she noticed it—there was only one bed in the room, a double, big enough for two to comfortably share it. She inwardly scoffed. The bears seriously couldn’t squeeze in a second bed?

“Well,” she said finally, “the room isn’t too shabby.”

Kokichi followed close behind, taking a peek in the bathroom. Spotless tiles gleamed under the light, and colored bottles of soap and shampoo peeked from inside the shower stall. There were even two bath towels on the roomy sink for them to use. “This place is ritzy compared to what I was expecting.”

“I’ll say.” The room was tidy and, most of all, finished. It was a high-class hotel compared to the half-constructed main building in the school, which had broken floor tiles, dust and debris, and even plant life growing indoors, to say nothing of the overgrowth and scattered boulders outside the premises.

Kaede counted the pillows on the bed. It sure seemed like a lot… “Looks like they included some extra pillows so one of us can take the loveseat over there.”

Kokichi flopped across the foot of the bed. “Oh, did you not want to cuddle with me in the bed~?” he purred.

She frowned at him. “N-No, thanks. I prefer to have a bed to myself.”

“Are you suuure you don’t want to keep your eye on me so I don’t try to kill you while you’re vulnerable?”

His words sent a shiver up her spine. It was a threat made in such a casual, lighthearted tone. She tried to keep her voice level when she said, “You shouldn’t make jokes like that here.”

The smile never left his face. “Nee-heehee, just kidding! A murder under these circumstances would be too easy to figure out. I have the feeling everyone’s safe for tonight, unless Monokuma decides to break his own rule and come after one of us himself.”

He had a point. Plus, this was the character known for bragging about being a liar, with his secret evil crime syndicate or whatever. Still, it was too early to tell how dangerous her roommate might be, if at all. The idea kept her on alert.

Instead, she asked, “So, I guess you’re taking the bed?”

“I never said that.” Kokichi popped to his feet and bounced up to her. “In fact, I have a fun way of how to decide who gets the bed!”

Kaede leaned away involuntarily, still uneasy from his earlier words. “And what would that be?”

“Rock-paper-scissors!” He held out his fist sideways. “Best two out of three gets the bed.”

It seemed innocuous enough.

“Rock, paper, scissors!”

Kokichi matched rock with her, so they tried again.

“Rock, paper, scissors!”

Both rock again.

“Rock, paper, scissors!”

Kaede had switched to paper, but Kokichi had the same idea that she had somehow. “Geez… Rock, paper, scissors!”

Again they tied, and again, and again. Kokichi sighed dramatically. “Okay, Kaede, it was funny the first eight times, but now…”

“I’m not doing anything.”

After yet another draw, they picked up the pace, firing off seven or eight more rounds over the course of the next minute. Finally, Kokichi raised his hands in surrender. “If you want the bed that badly, you can have it.”

“I really didn’t do anything, though,” she insisted.

He grabbed a few of the pillows and tossed them onto the loveseat. “Uh-huh. I bet you just wanted to get back at me for what happened in the Death Road of Despair.”

Kaede winced at his statement. “I…” Somehow, his playful tone did nothing to soften the reminder his words carried. Remembering what happened earlier, how he’d chewed her out for pushing everyone so hard when she just wanted to escape this nightmare school, added even more weight to her tired limbs and shoulders, not to mention tears to her eyes.

Stifling her tears, she pulled off her socks, then unceremoniously dropped her necktie and vest on top of them. Yanking back the covers of the bed harder than she meant to, she collapsed, sinking into the mattress. At least it was comfortable. She shoved her face into one of her pillows, she finally let herself weep a little, careful to keep quiet so she wouldn’t catch Kokichi’s attention.

_ I just wanted to escape with everyone. I was so sure… we would get out if we just never gave up… I always succeeded in the past if I never gave up. So much for that plan… _

Luckily for her, sleep was waiting in the wings.

**Author's Note:**

> A now-deactivated blog on tumblr did a bunch of “Only One Bed” prompts with various pairings, one of which was Kaede and Kokichi. It was a lot more playful and had actual bed-sharing, and I thought of an even more comical spin — but I ended up writing something wrapped in exhaustion and despair instead. Oops...
> 
> The first section doesn’t need to exist, but I mostly use it to get a tiny taste of what it’s like writing some of the other cast members, even if I don’t plan to do so in the future. I mostly hope I was able to do the Monokubs justice.
> 
> That seat in the V3 bedrooms... It looks like a big, cushy chair, but a comic by a fanartist depicted it as a loveseat once, so I’m standing by that (esp considering you can never get a good enough angle to say positively which it is).


End file.
